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Editorial: Washing away the complacency

For thousands of years, presumably, the beginning of summer in Taiwan has seen the approach of the plum rains, a time when rainfall is at its heaviest -- excluding typhoons.

The plum rains can give people a shocking reminder of the sheer volume of water that Taiwan's skies can send crashing down after the drizzle of winter.

A number of factors have worsened the occasionally severe flooding that has always impacted on the Taipei Basin. One of these is erosion and the removal of trees and other older vegetation further up the catchment area.

All around Taiwan, rivers that once enjoyed a regular flow of water have been reduced to a trickle because of the lack of vegetative filters that would stagger the distribution of water over hours and days instead of a much shorter timeframe.

The other consequence of this is an increase in damage resulting from boulders and mud being washed downstream, never more spectacularly than the frightening wall of water and rock that crashed through Kukuan (谷關) in Taichung County a few years ago.

Another factor contributing to flood damage is the urbanization of what was always a low-lying area. Taipei is effectively a swamp with a man-made concrete shell, and there are times when the swamp and the water that falls on it will take no notice whatsoever of human convenience.

One might think that after this amount of time, therefore, people who live in areas prone to flooding might prepare for the rains and flooding with a little more rigor than has been apparent in Taipei City in the last few days.

Back in September 2001, when Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was mayor of Taipei, a typhoon struck that was memorable not for its wind but for the colossal amount of water. More than a meter of rain fell in parts of the Taipei Basin catchment area within 24 hours, and by the time Typhoon Nari moved on, Taipei had seen what some described as its worst-ever flooding. Many dozens of people were also killed.

The damage was greatly worsened by inept flood control measures, a controversy that dogs Ma to this day.

But it is simply ridiculous for governments to be held responsible for all flooding, everywhere. People who live in flood zones cannot be taken seriously if, after governments have provided an acceptable minimum of resources to fight flood damage, they complain as if officials are demigods with the power to halt rain. The ability to live with flooding is as necessary to people in these areas as living with the summer heat.

The truth is that flooding in greater Taipei -- particularly at Shezi Island (社子島), Sijhih (汐止) and other areas adjacent to the Keelung River -- is simply inevitable.

But crippling damage is not. Where governments are demonstrably negligent, as Ma's was back in 2001, action against them is warranted.

But where flooding damages low-lying areas simply because they are low-lying areas, there is no cause for complaint. It is the responsibility of residents in these areas to assume that flooding will occur and to take every step possible beforehand, rather than complain to the government as if the plum rains had just visited Taiwan for the first time.
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